Saturday, July 9, 2011

I. The Israeli government and military would prefer that no foreign nationals critical of the policies of that government be given any sort of forum that either brings public attention to abuses, war crimes and human rights violations against Palestinians, or humanizes the Palestinians' plight in ways that seek to give the latter more freedom over the administration of their own affairs. Although most foreign nationals who want to help the Palestinians gain more freedom despise the thugs of Hamas and buffoons of Fatah, defenders of Israeli human rights abuses and war crimes unceasingly attempt to frame defenders of Palestinians as friends of Hamas. The reality is that the IDF and Israeli government need Hamas desperately, to keep propped up as a vicious boogeyman. They would rather have a few rockets rain down on their own people in Sderot, than have none at all.

The 2010 Gaza flotilla was brutally intercepted by Israeli naval forces. After taking the Turkish vessel, MV Mavi Marmara, the Israelis summarily executed several Turks, and then crafted a disturbingly false narrative about how heavily armed these evil, swarthy (read non-white "other") Turks were. It fit the racist meme that abides so comfortably in the increasingly openly racist Israeli military and society at large. And, sadly, that same meme works well with the kinds of Americans who thrive on Fox News myths about swarthy people out of control.

The MV Mavi Marmara was taken violently on purpose. Had I been the commander of the naval operation, knowing for weeks that the MVMM would be among the mix of vessels, all I would have had to say would have been, "find me a way to peacefully stop the big Turkish cruise ship, or I will demote you," and a solution would have been found within an hour.

Apparently, the Israeli military learned enough from 2010 that nobody was murdered this year. This is good. The 2011 flotilla organizers were, frankly, as unimaginative as possible, though. Expecting the Greek government to not react to the combined pressures of the U.S. and Israeli governments during an almost catastrophic internal crisis was a major strategic error.

But both the 2010 and 2011 flotillas have had an impact upon the people of the Gaza Strip that has been positive. The recent improvements in the amounts of needed goods entering Gaza is a direct result of continuing efforts by the movements sponsoring or being inspired by the flotilla movement. Some Israeli commentators and government officials have acknowledged just that. American citizen Furkan Doğan and his Turkish brothers did not give their lives in vain.

This weekend's"Welcome to Palestine flytilla," farcical on many levels, has not been covered well by the American media, but the Europeans, whose countries were the points of departure for the protesters, saw a healthy dose of coverage over the past three days. And so did firedoglake.

Nothing troubles Israeli policy makers in terms of their continuing expansion into new lands in the West Bank, outright theft of land and resources, and seemingly blasé murder of one innocent Palestinian after another, than when a foreign national objecting to these illegal practices is hurt or killed. Especially if that foreign national is white. (As clarification, I consider Turks white, for what it is worth, but watching Israeli and some American press coverage of Turkish issues, it appears some do not.)

II. On Sunday, July 10th, the wrongful death civil suit brought by the parents of Rachel Corrie against the Israeli Defense Forces, will see its last day of testimony:

Former Gaza Division’s Southern Brigade Commander, Colonel Pinhas (Pinky) Zuaretz – the final witness in the case – is scheduled to testify Sunday, July 10, in the Corrie civil trial against the State of Israel.

Colonel Zuaretz was the commanding officer of the Israeli military’s Gaza Division’s Southern Brigade in 2003, when American peace activist Rachel Corrie was killed. Troops under his command were responsible for the actions resulting in her killing. Zuaretz is the highest ranking officer called as a government witness in the civil trial who had command responsibility in Gaza. He is possibly the highest such officer ever to face cross examination in a civil suit regarding the actions of the Israeli military against civilians in Gaza during the second intifada. His testimony is expected to shed light on the Israeli military’s failures as an occupying power to protect civilian life and property in the region.

The trial began in March 2010, and has taken longer than expected, partially because of a strike by court workers in late 2010. A few of the revelations from the trial have been jarring. Here are the most notable:

On March 14, 2010, IDF forensic examiner Yehuda Hiss admitted to not allowing U.S. embassy personnel observe him conducting Corrie's autopsy. His testimony revealed that the U.S. Embassy had lied to the Corrie family. Hiss also testified, rather disturbingly:

Dr. Hiss also disclosed that he had kept samples from Rachel’s body for histological testing without informing her family. Dr. Hiss admitted that he did not inform the family about their right to bury the samples and that the samples were likely to have been buried with other body samples from the Institute, but he was uncertain. This was the first time that the family of Rachel Corrie received confirmation that the Israeli Forensic Institute had indeed kept samples of her body, despite prior attempts to receive this information. Dr. Hiss has been the subject of a prior lawsuit in Israel brought by families for whom he did not return body parts and samples.

On March 15, 2010, British citizen and nurse, Alice Coy, a witness to Corrie's death, testified that despite published IDF reports that there were no home demolitions ongoing where Corrie was killed, that certainly was not the case. She also testified that "When the Israeli Military interviewed her on April 1st about Rachel’s killing, the soldier who documented her testimony refused to record her statement that she believed the bulldozers were going to destroy civilian homes." Eventually, the home Corrie tried to protect on March 16, 2003 was destroyed by an IDF bulldozer.

Who is Dr. Hiss? The chief pathologist of Israel for a decade and a half, Hiss was implicated by a 2001 investigation by the Israeli Health Ministry of stealing body parts ranging from legs to testicles to ovaries from bodies without permission from family members then selling them to research institutes. Bodies plundered by Hiss included those of Palestinians and Israeli soldiers. He was finally removed from his post in 2004 when the body of a teenage boy killed in a traffic accident was discovered to have been thoroughly gnawed on by a rat in Hiss’s laboratory. In an interview with researcher Nancy Schepper-Hughes, Hiss admitted that he harvested organs if he was confident relatives would not discover that they were missing. He added that he often used glue to close eyelids to hide missing corneas.

Max also wrote about the testimony that week of a Col. "Yossi":

In a small courtroom on the sixth floor of Haifa’s District Court, a colonel in the Israeli engineering corps who wrote a manual for the bulldozer units that razed the Rafah Refugee Camp in 2003 offered his opinion on the killing of the American activist Rachel Corrie.

“There are no civilians during wartime,” Yossi declared under oath.

Yossi made his remarkable statement under withering cross examination by Hussein Abu Hussein, the lawyer for the family of Corrie

Col. Yossi's statement of belief or of policy (he wrote a book on it, after all) is more troubling to me than that of Dr. Hiss. Essentially, Israel considers itself to be at war with not just Hamas, but with any government, any movement and any individual who seeks to "delegitimize" its expansionist policies and racist implementation of it. People like me, CTuttle and anyone else who is critical of these policies is a potential target for whatever might be deemed appropriate for us, should we get in the way.

One commander of the unit involved in the incident interrupted the testimony of the operator of the bulldozer that killed Rachel, telling him that the head of the Southern Command of the Israeli military ordered him to stop talking, not to sign anything and not to cooperate with the investigation. When asked if he considered this an intervention into the interrogation, the investigator testified that he did.

and:

Though the camera posted on the border was taping 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the investigator testified that he did not see footage from the camera, nor did he ask to, stating that it was someone else’s responsibility.

When the trial resumed on September 5, 2010, a military police investigator, "Oded," revealed that even though he had been assigned to investigate Corrie's death, he was unqualified, and was not helped by the IDF, in any event:

Oded confirmed that a commander of the unit involved in Rachel’s killing interrupted the questioning of the bulldozer operator, telling him that Doron Almog, head of the Israeli military’s Southern Command, had ordered that the questioning cease. He also said that, in his experience, interference of this nature from military commanders was not uncommon.

When asked why he did not challenge the intervention, Oded said that as a junior investigator, it was not his place to do so. He was 20-years-old at the time, with only a high-school education and three-months of training in investigation.

Corrie’s case was the first civilian killing that Oded investigated from beginning to end.

Like El’ad [who testified in March], Oded stated that neither he nor any other investigator visited the site of the killing.

Oded's testimony revealed that much of the conversation recorded by the bulldozer teams in the area of Corrie's death had been in Arabic, and that he did not speak the language. More Israeli racism and dual standard came out:

Oded testified that none of the investigators interviewed any of the Palestinian witnesses – including medical personnel who examined Rachel immediately following the incident. When asked why, he said he did not think they could provide any useful information.

When the trial resumed on October 10, the Corries argued that witnesses from the IDF should be visible in court, rather than kept behind a screen:

Lawyers for the family of Rachel Corrie filed an appeal with the Israeli Supreme Court on Sunday, challenging a decision to allow soldiers to testify behind a screen in the lawsuit filed against the State of Israel for the unlawful killing of the American peace activist in Rafah, Gaza.

State attorneys made the highly unusual request in court on Thursday, October 7 arguing that they were necessary to protect the soldiers’ safety and prevent their images from being circulated. Haifa District Court Judge Oded Gershon granted the request, ruling that all but two soldiers, who were both already known to the public, would be permitted to provide their testimony hidden from public view.

Corrie attorneys opposed the motion, arguing that allowing the soldiers to testify behind a screen infringes upon the fundamental right to an open, fair and transparent trial. They argued that the government request was based on an overbroad security certificate issued by Defense Minister Ehud Barak in 2008, was not supported by concrete evidence to substantiate their concerns for the soldiers’ safety or security. The lawyers will also ask the Supreme Court to review Judge Gerhson’s decision not to allow the family to see the witnesses even if the public could not.

In over four hours of often confused testimony, Y.P. seemed to struggle to read and understand his own affidavit signed in April. He could not remember basic facts, such as the date of Rachel’s killing or time of day it happened. He repeatedly contradicted his own statements on the stand and testimony given to military police investigators in 2003.

Highlights of testimony include the following:

Y.P stated that after he drove over Rachel and backed up, she was located between his bulldozer and the mound of earth that he had pushed, corroborating photographic evidence and testimony from international eyewitnesses given to the court in March. His testimony calls into question that of the commander inside this same bulldozer, whose written affidavit states that Rachel’s body was located in a different location, on the far side of the mound of earth created by the bulldozer. In court, Y.P. was asked if based on this contradiction he wanted to change his testimony. He firmly stated no.

In testimony to military police investigators only three days after the incident, Y.P. said the blind spot in front of the bulldozer was 3 meters. In contradicting court testimony, he claimed the blind spot was 30 meters – ten times the distance first stated.

Y.P. knew about regulations that the bulldozer was not to work within 10 meters of people. He was aware civilians were present, but said he was given orders to continue working. He said I’ m just a soldier. It was not my decision.

He claimed he did not see Rachel before the event. Nor did he recall seeing her specifically at all that day, despite the fact that she had protested the bulldozer’s activity for several hours and was the only female activist wearing a bright orange fluorescent jacket.

The Corries were disappointed they could not see their daughter's killer:

Following the driver’s testimony, Cindy Corrie stated, “It was very difficult not to hear or detect anything in this witness’s words or voice that suggested remorse. Sadly, what I heard from the other side of the screen was indifference.”

Cindy Corrie said yesterday she didn’t hear the driver express any remorse for what had happened. On reflection, I think this may not be as clear cut. While he certainly didn’t apologize, voice any regret or in any way reacted to the Corries’ presence in the same room with him, I was struck how he avoided using the first person when referring to Rachel’s death; asked to affirm his identity and role on the day, he said, “I was the driver of the bulldozer on the day she.. the girl.. was run over.” He maintained this alienation throughout the day; the closest he came to acknowledging his direct, personal role, was in the repeated phrase, “I understood I may have hit someone.” Perhaps this is just wishful thinking on my part, but I couldn’t avoid thinking this alienation signalled that like many a combatant, in some place within him, the driver understands exactly what he has done, and perhaps wishes that things have turned out otherwise; while distant, he certainly didn’t sound blasé.

After the Israeli court strike was over, and the courts caught back up, there were more sessions this spring.

On April 4, 2011, the trial resumed, with more confusing testimony by IDF personnel. One witness, Captain S.R, corroborated the accuracy of International Solidarity Movement witnesses, that has long been challenged by right-wing American and Israeli bloggers:

The commander of the unit that killed Rachel Corrie told a Haifa court on Sunday that he was ordered to continue bulldozer work even though it presented danger to civilians, including foreign activists, who were present in the area and could not be dispersed.

Known to the court as Captain S.R., the Bedouin officer said that he actually requested to halt bulldozer operations on the day Rachel was killed, because he thought civilians might be hurt, but was ordered to continue.

On the day she was killed, Captain S.R. radioed to Israeli army command and said that something from the bulldozer fell on Rachel. However, in court, he admitted he did not see the exact moment of the incident and that this was only a fleeting hypothesis. He said he reached Rachel’s body less than one minute after the incident and it was immediately clear by marks in the ground that Rachel had been hit by the bulldozer.

Captain S.R.’s testimony about the location of Rachel’s body after she was hit corroborated that of international eyewitnesses and the bulldozer driver, all of whom said that after the bulldozer backed up, Rachel’s body was located between the bulldozer and the mound of earth that it had pushed. This calls into question the testimony of the bulldozer commander, and the position of the State, that Rachel’s body was in a different location: on the far side of the mound of earth created by the bulldozer. Captain S.R. confirmed that evidence photos taken by the protesters that day accurately reflect the scene of the incident after Ms. Corrie was hit.

He confirmed that a female soldier viewed the site through a remote camera that day, and instructions could be given to his unit based on what was seen.

The Captain’s review of an interview he gave to Israeli Channel 2 TV’s “Uvda” program confirmed the existence of IDF video footage that has not been submitted into evidence by the State or provided to the Corrie family’s attorneys through discovery. The interview, aired on April 5, 2003, included a segment of March 16th, 2003 Israeli military video of the operations. His testimony confirms additional IDF video exists, even though the lead Military Police investigator responsible for obtaining evidence in the case stated firmly that there is no additional video.

He confirmed that a written document does exist that outlines regulations, specific to civilians, for a “removal procedure” – a set of instructions outlining how to remove civilians in situations such as these. Attorneys for the State continued to claim the regulation does not exist – in direct contradiction to the sworn testimony of their own witness moments before.

The testimony continued with "S.L., who in 2003 was head of the Mechanized Engineering Equipment Department."

In an affidavit submitted to the court, referring to regulations, S.L. said, “in no way is the directive applicable to the operational conditions in which the bulldozer operated in this case.” However, in court on Sunday, he contradicted that assertion and admitted that regulations requiring that D9 bulldozers not operate within 20 meters of people did, in fact, apply.

When asked if there were “lessons learned” in response to this incident, he said he was unaware of any changes made in training and affirmed that to date, cameras to improve visibility have not been added to the bulldozers. He said the Israeli army experimented with cameras but found they were not a good solution because they were too easily damaged and because neither the bulldozer operator nor his commander had ability to pay attention to the cameras under operational circumstances. However, he confirmed that unmanned “drone” bulldozers with cameras attached were used by the Israeli army during the Lebanon invasion of 2006.

Deputy Battalion Commander Sh.R, a Major responsible for overseeing 450-500 soldiers in Gaza, said he was located about 1 ½ kilometers from the scene at the army’s Liaison Unit with Foreign Forces (Yaklaz), and that although the bulldozer work was under the direct ground supervision of Captain S.R., he was in a position to influence the work and was ultimately responsible for the decisions made that day. This was significant because in the preceding hearing, Captain S.R., a Bedouin officer who testified earlier in the week, told the court he requested to halt his work because of the presence of the protesters, and potential danger to them, but received orders to continue.

Major Sh.R, in his testimony, presented a hard doctrinaire IDF line. At the Rachel Corrie Foundation trial blog, the major's assertion is challenged:

Sh.R. defined the “Philidelphi Route” not just as the narrow, Israeli controlled, military road running parallel to the Gaza/Egypt border, but rather as the entire width of land between the Egypt border and the first row of Palestinian houses inside Gazan territory. He also insisted that Palestinians in these houses were those digging tunnels, snipers attacking the military, or smuggling weapons, and that clearing and destroying homes was done only after it was “beyond a reasonable doubt” that homes were empty. His description, although emblematic of the Israeli military’s position regarding the area in 2003, completely ignores the fact, and credible documentation by U.N. humanitarian agencies and human rights groups, that the land was once filled with densely populated civilian homes, the first row of which receded rapidly as the Israeli military bulldozed row upon row of houses, widening the border’s buffer zone and claiming the newly razed Palestinian territory for its own. Comparative satellite photos from a 2004 Human Rights Watch publication titled Razing Rafah: Mass Home Demolitions in the Gaza Strip document this “wholesale destruction” of Palestinian homes along Gaza’s southern border.

In his continuing testimony, the major made an interesting assertion:

Sh.R. stated he knew unarmed protestors were in the area, but in his opinion, stopping the work was not an option. He said the protesters were not a threat to the force, but added that if every foreigner came to raise banners, terrorists would also come and he would lose his ability to control the region. He admitted that avoiding a precedent was a consideration in the decision to continue working. He stated that in his opinion, the protesters should have been barred from entering Gaza. [emphasis added]

Major Sh.R. said more than he may have intended. Additionally, his further testimony, linked to the deaths of other foreign nationals during the same time period as Corrie, is quite troubling. The Corrie Foundation article on this states:

Although, he described in testimony that regulations state you don’t shoot unless there is intent and means to hurt you, a written summary of events recorded in the daily operations log on March 16, 2003, stated, “those foreigners should be handled and their entrance into the Gaza Strip should be forbidden. Additionally, the work must continue in the area in question. The firing orders state that every adult person should be shot to kill.” Within seven weeks of Rachel’s killing, award winning journalist James Miller and activist Tom Hurndall, both British citizens, were shot and killed along the same two mile stretch of the Rafah, Gaza border.

One should realize that this corridor of densely packed civilian housing that the IDF was willing to kill so many people over, has since been abandoned by the IDF.

The local platoon commander that day, A.D, provided more information that should be troubling, in regard to Israeli military disregard of international law:

work, although he could not remember anything about the specific file that day.

The APC had a periscope from which they could see a longer distance from the vehicle.

Commander R.S. spoke frequently on the cell phone and, in order to use it, he had to remove his helmet. This contradicts earlier military testimonies that claimed helmets worn would never be removed and, thus, soldiers would not have heard the protesters shouting through the megaphone nearby.

He could not recall the specific safety instructions for the D9 bulldozer, but said the unit would continue working as carefully as possible. He believed work was allowed if protesters were within 15 meters of the vehicle, but not if they were within 5 meters.

He knew that the protesters were civilians and “Americans.”

He said there was a first aid kit within the APC, and he believed it was likely that the radio communications person in the vehicle was also a trained medic. However, he confirmed that the medical kit was not thrown to the protesters after Rachel was hit. Testimony made clear that no serious attempt was made by the military to provide medical assistance to Rachel at the scene prior to Palestinian medics evacuating her.

The soldiers offered no medical assistance. Corrie might have been saved, but was not.

This is consistent with the evidence provided by the video smuggled off of the MV Mavi Marmara by Iara Lee, which clearly showed both that the Israeli soldiers wounded and captured by resistors on that ship were immediately given medical assistance, and that the Israeli military refused any medical attention to the wounded Turks, as they went about assassinating at close range.

On May 22, former IDF spokesperson, Ruth Yaron took the stand. From the Corrie Foundation trial blog:

Yaron’s testimony focused on the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), in a weak attempt by the State to justify the military’s killing of Rachel by delegitimizing the organization’s mission of resisting the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian lands using only non-violent, direct action, methods. Rachel was an unarmed civilian, non-violently protesting against home demolitions in Rafah, Gaza, when she was killed. Yaron provided no first-hand knowledge of events, and relied heavily on second or third hand sources and hearsay.

Additional information about Yaron’s testimony will be released in the future.

Sunday is supposed to be this long trial's final day of testimony. Scheduled is the former Gaza Division’s Southern Brigade Commander, Colonel Pinhas (Pinky) Zuaretz:

Colonel Zuaretz was the commanding officer of the Israeli military’s Gaza Division’s Southern Brigade in 2003, when American peace activist Rachel Corrie was killed. Troops under his command were responsible for the actions resulting in her killing. Zuaretz is the highest ranking officer called as a government witness in the civil trial who had command responsibility in Gaza. He is possibly the highest such officer ever to face cross examination in a civil suit regarding the actions of the Israeli military against civilians in Gaza during the second intifada. His testimony is expected to shed light on the Israeli military’s failures as an occupying power to protect civilian life and property in the region.

It will be some time before a decision is reached, and whichever way it comes out, it is certainly likely to be appealed all the way to the Israeli Supreme Court.

III. As Israel becomes more racist, as land confiscation in the West Bank ramps up, as Netanyahu dares our government to object in the run-up to major fundraising for the 2012 election, and as participants of this summer's protests to Israeli occupation and apartheid policies seek to find ways to be more effective in the future, it is important to realize that Palestinians don't resent that so much more attention was brought to her demise than has been brought to the deaths of thousands of Palestinians, Lebanese and others, at the hands of the IDF.

It is also important to note that in 2003, when Corrie was killed, perhaps murdered, there was no Hamas boogey man running Gaza. It was under control of the Palestinian Authority, and was being aggressively colonized by Israeli settlers, using the South African model, as they continue to do in the occupied West Bank.

This weekend the Israelis stopped hundreds of peaceful Americans and Europeans from merely getting off an airplane in Tel Aviv to go to the West Bank. Almost 100 are in jail right now. Some will be there for weeks. Alice Walker, who was on the American boat hoping to go to Gaza, the MV Audacity of Hope, was in the West Bank last spring. She wrote this:

I have been in Palestine for five days. It has been amazing. Deeply distressing and sad in many ways; but also filled with joy, with creativity, exuberance, and hope. Who knew there was so much life left in Palestine? That people are in love with literature and poetry? That young people are on fire about the novels and short stories they’re reading in their classes? As well as about the revolutions shaking the Arab world? That despite the hardships of occupation there is a sense among Palestinians that the world is changing and is at last capable of hearing them. And not just hearing them, but responding. And not only to their tragic and hair raising reports of the lethal Israeli occupation; an occupation as pathological as any ever to afflict humankind. No, the thought in the air around here resembles the brilliant red poppy one sees glowing between massive rocks, its roots somehow not crushed, that sings: Oh yes, I am still here, still red, still blooming as me, in spite of everything! And guess what? I have no desire to resemble these rocks that sit on top of me.

This is the peace of non-violent revolt which entails a radical dedication to non-abandonment of the peaceful self.

Long live all of us, and especially the Palestinian people: Tenacious, like the red poppy. Waving bright hope in the smallest wind. Blooming, joyful, retaining our humor and generosity to the stranger, but also our love of green grass and Spring.

Each of Earth’s peoples teaches the rest of us something: You demonstrate steadfastness: how to hold on, through lies, murder, brutal repression, breathtaking theft, unbearable despair, until at last, singing our own outraged and wild poppy song, we come to join you.

Eight years ago this week, as I sought permission from Rachel Corrie's family to write music honoring her, Cindy Corrie wrote to me:

Our lives are fairly complicated these days, as I am sure you can imagine..... Our loss is great but creative responses like yours to Rachel's life and death lift my spirits so.

The Corries continue their complicated fight to lift the spirits of the oppressed Palestinian people. Let us hope the Corries and the Palestinians get some overdue justice, for their children, who deserve more than what we now give them.

9 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Truly a tragic sadness for the Corrie family. How could this average Olympia, Washington family have predicted that their lovely daughter would come to such an end. A parent's worst nightmare made real. I feel for them.

Alice Coy was not a nurse. She was an activist with the International Solidarity Movement, self-described as “feminist, anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian, Jewish peace activist" and deported after 4 months. She went home to England and back to school.She did not suffer the same fate even though she embraced the special status of Martyr with the same excitement as her Islamic colleagues. She was very into ISM's Human Shield strategy.It DOES work some of the time. Just not all the time, particularly in the Middle East during war time. Unfortunately for Rachel.

The Corrie family have been commended and rewarded by Islam leaders and Fatah for their daughter's life and had an audience and photo session with Yassar Arafat.

Associated Press: Cindy and Craig Corrie, right, parents of late American peace activist Rachel Corrie display the Bethlehem 2000 medal awarded by the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at his office in the West Bank town of Ramallah Thursday Sept. 25, 2003. (AP Photo/Hussein Hussein, HO)

Presumably, this middle-class American girl had noble intentions, wanted to make a difference in the world - cared about injustice - when she signed up for the International Solidarity Movement's program. I think she just meant to go do something worthy, come home from her adventure, finish her degree at Evergreen, settle into an all-American life - a job, house payments, Christmas at the folks' house.

Never mind the rights and wrongs of a 5,000-year-old religious conflict in the Middle East; Fatah grievances against Hamas, Hamas fighting with Jews, Egyptians against Hamas. Where should ISM be accountable for suckering noble and impressionable young students into its Human Shield projects? Their mission is NOT "humanitarian" in focus. It's political. They don't pretend otherwise, they're upfront and honest about it and SAY so themselves in their literature.They also demand an understanding of the voluntary risk from recruits and a signed waiver of liability. They are instructed to intentionally put themselves in the path of harm's way and to prepare themselves for taking the ultimate responsibility. And they do. Funny enough, it's starting to come clear that it's the volunteer recruits who are injured and killed on suicide mission; never the leadership and paid staff of ISM. Yes, international agencies have been tracking ISM's casualties.

This family is not incorrect for feeling outrage. Their anger and grief is righteous. The only question is who is "responsible"?

"Human Shield" is a more pleasant way to say "kamikaze" or "suicide missions."

It would take hours to untangle all the slanders, distortions, lies, half-lies, and bias you have have cited above and it would probably be useless anyway. In my experience, when people express such anger and hatred for us, they are motivated by emotional needs and resentments that are difficult if not impossible to deal with logically. So I will just tell you how we see things and maybe you will read it with the same generosity with which you read the missives of our enemies.

We are a small people in a small country. It is a country in which we can be free and free to be ourselves. In which we do not have to be dependent on the whims of others, conform ourselves to the demands of others, or submit to the domination of those who happen to be more numerous and more powerful than we are.

This country and that freedom are an anomaly in our history. And they were hard won. Very hard won. Won by the blood, sweat, and labor both physical and intellectual of a great many people. But as a result of this effort, we are now living in a unique time, one in which the Jewish people have realized one of its most fervently held dreams: The reconstitution of our ancestral nation and the reacquisition of the power to decide our own destiny.

But it is more than just the realization of a dream. It is also an act of rebellion. A rebellion against the place in which we were imprisoned by non-Jewish society. A rebellion against the type of people we were forced to be in those societies: false, desperate, submissive, and frightened. A rebellion against the diktat of history, according to which all civilizations eventually fall and die away. And perhaps more than anything else, it is a rebellion against those who would wish to see us destroyed or, at the very least, made to suffer in perpetual servitude.

When we look at the Arabs, we see a group of people, a very numerous and powerful group of people, who want to take that away from us. For whatever reason - and the reasons are ultimately irrelevant - they want to take away our freedom, our rebellion, and our victory over the forces that would see us suffering or erased completely. Some of them also want nothing less than our annihilation. And annihilation is not a paranoid joke to us - it is within living memory, and within ancient memory as well. We are a small people, and our destruction is possible. None of us can or will forget that.

But there is something even worse than this. It is the insistence among the Arabs and their supporters that we deserve it. That because of our racial or religious inferiority, because of our alleged crimes, because of the suffering they believe we have caused them, because of our inexplicably evil nature, or simply because they are many and we are few, they have earned the right to dominate or destroy us.

They are not the first. I have no doubt they will not be the last. It is my personal belief that history is not, ultimately, on their side. Civilizations from the ancient Persians to the modern Germans have made the same claim. Go look for them now. But history has also proven, unfortunately, that the suffering and death they can inflict on us is enormous.

I believe, and many Israelis agree with me, that it does not have to be this way. That at some point the Arabs - and even the Palestinian Arabs, despite how fundamental their hatred of us is to their identity - may well decide that they do not, in fact, have the right I mentioned above and that it was wrong for them to think they did. At that point, and I am sad to say at that point only, peace will be possible.

Until that moment comes, and I sincerely hope it will and I will live to see it, we will have to fight. We will have to fight because our enemies have given us no other choice. And to the extent that we hate them, we hate them for that, and for the suffering they have inflicted upon us in proving it to us.

We choose to fight because we believe that no one has earned the right to destroy or dominate us. That is is monstrous for them to believe this. And that their belief in it is their crime and not ours.

Two points.1. "...when people express such anger and hatred... they are motivated by emotional needs and resentments that are difficult if not impossible to deal with logically."Regarding this post - I don't get it.I've wondered a long time what fuels this passionate resentment of Israel (and Jews specifically) in a Wasilla, Alaska man, raised in a middle-class home in Washington state. Where does this come from? What is the life experience that begets such authoritative position on a complicated multidimensional, multinational racial conflict spanning many many generations? I've asked politely for clarity, both in the comment section and by private email. I've yet to receive an answer. I've speculated that he himself might be Arabic, but he's not. A financial interest. Religious belief. Or more romantic, a lover dead at the hands of an Israeli. Only something deeply personal compels this kind of single-minded loyalty and conviction to Arabs, in a violent conflict in which there are many bad moments and many villains. It's come to the point that it amounts to counting coup and tallying blows on both sides. With invested foreign interests on both sides meddling, helping "their" guy get the upper hand. If there is one.Fairly understandable rhetoric and historical background for each side's position. It's clear - we know how we got here. No matter what one's opinion of the conflict, one can understand the other side's position. Why not this blogger?

2. "I believe, and many Israelis agree with me, that it does not have to be this way."I believe many Palestinian Arabs think this as well. Not sure, but I think so.America had a long civil war because North and South didn't agree on human beings being slaves. It was so polarizing that there was no compromise. They kept on fighting until there was little left. It took military subjugation to disband armies and "resolve" conflict. Conflict that continues to separate Americans to this day. There are those that believe a particular race should be slaves and that they should own them. We believe that they are wrong. Naturally, they believe that we are wrong.

Although I take your comments to be sincere, I found your statement, "It would take hours to untangle all the slanders, distortions, lies, half-lies, and bias you have have cited above and it would probably be useless anyway," not only troubling, but disingenuous. Are you incapable of being succinct?

I truly yearn for peace on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. Perhaps more than you do. I also yearn for my country to come home from our growing number of wars that only create more hatred toward us. Maybe some day, we can agree on what that "peace" actually means.

“The surreal thing is that we are safe” here, she wrote. More surreal is the fact that Rachel Corrie, indoctrinated by the ISM, her college, and suspect sources, imposed her preconceived notions on a situation that did not match those preconceptions. Tragically, anti-Israel activists are exploiting her accidental death to promote this surreal narrative.

The greater tragedy is that her parents are doing the same. Their lack of curiosity about the ISM and their wholesale acceptance of its propaganda are startling, especially given that the ISM put their daughter in danger.

Instead of using their bitter experience as a warning to parents of other would-be ISM recruits, they are using their position as bereaved parents to win sympathy for the group most responsible for their daughter’s death.

> that in November 1947, Israel accepted the UN Partition Plan which would have created a Palestinian Arab state alongside the State of Israel that following the British withdrawal, Israel was invaded in 1948 by its surrounding Arab neighbors with the support of the Palestinian Arab leadership, and that the invading nations, primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, promised--even boasted--that they would commit a genocide of all Jewish inhabitants of Palestine.

> that the Palestinians refugee problem created by this war, therefore, Rachel Corrie may not have known that in the aftermath of this war, many Arab Muslim countries across North Africa and Arabia forcibly expelled entire Jewish populations from their ancestral homes, and these refugees were offered sanctuary by only one country: Israel, and that in fact, these refugees and their descendants now account for over half the population of Israel.

> that after the Six-Day War in June 1967, which was provoked by Egypt closing the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, expelling the UN peacekeeping observers from the Sinai, and by both Egypt and Syria massing troops aggressively on Israel's borders, Israel offered to immediately return the territories it captured in exchange for peace and diplomatic recognition.

> that even before the Six-Day War, when Israel did not occupy any of the Gaza Strip or the West Bank, Israel was subjected to terrorist attacks against its civilians by Palestinians that Israel has made repeated overtures for peace, and that these have been repeatedly rejected by the Palestinian leadership, whose stated goals, even today, is the genocidal massacre of Jewish Israelis.

> Had Rachel Corrie known these things--had she been presented with a fair and balanced understanding of Middle East history by her professors, her perception of who bears the principle responsibility for this conflict, and exactly who and what constitutes "evil" may have been different.